Jewish Bubba: Mayim Bialik: Woman of All Seasons, All Accomplishments

Nadene Goldfoot

Do you remember the Big Bang Theory on TV of A woman who moves into an apartment across the hall from two brilliant but socially awkward physicists and shows them how little they know about life outside of the laboratory? Well, not her but another of the cast, the Jewish one, is Mayim Bialik playing the part of Amy. From 2010 to 2019, she played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, for which she was nominated four times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2015 and 2017. I just re-met her on JBS's program of an interview of her on Youtube. Also: TONIGHT at 8 ET on JBS: Actor, author, director, and neuroscience PhD Mayim Bialik discusses her Jewish journey, what it’s like to be proudly Jewish in Hollywood, how she’s responded to recent streams of antisemitism in the media and much more. American Jewish University - AJU.

She joined the cast of The Big Bang Theory as Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler in 2010. Her first appearance was in the season 3 finale as a potential love interest for the character of Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). In season 4, she began as a recurring character playing Sheldon's "friend that's a girl, but not a girlfriend." Beginning with the 8th episode of season 4, she became part of the main cast. Amy is a neurobiologist, which is related to Bialik's real-life doctorate in neuroscience. Bialik's performance in The Big Bang Theory earned her Emmy Award nominations in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Bialik was one of seven actresses who had a "quirky" personality to audition for the role. Before she joined the cast, in the episode "The Bat Jar Conjecture", Raj suggests recruiting the real-life Bialik to their Physics Bowl team, saying "You know who's apparently very smart is the girl who played TV's Blossom. She got a Ph.D. in neuroscience or something." She is one of the guest stars on the 2014 Steve Carell improvisational sketch show Riot.

Generational family of the little girl-Mayim, her mother and grandmother

From Interview: Depending on how old you are, you may know my next guest as the girl who played the young Bette Midler in "Beaches" or as the star of the '90s sit-down "Blossom," sitcom "Blossom" or as Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon Cooper's sort-of girlfriend on "The Big Bang Theory." Or maybe you know her as all three.

But you might not know that actor Mayim Bialik also has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. So why trade the world of real science geeks in academia for the geeks on "The Big Bang Theory"? She's here to tell us. Mayim Bialik is an actor and also the author of a new book "Beyond The Sling: The Real-life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children, the Attachment Parenting Way." Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

After a decade together, The Big Bang Theory star and her husband got divorced because of “irreconcilable differences." Despite this, Mayim Bialik maintains a good relationship with her ex-husband, Michael Stone. "Divorce is terribly sad, painful, and incomprehensible for children. Mayim Bialik was married to Michael Stone from 2003 to 2013. The businessman met his future wife in a calculus class while they were both at grad school at UCLA.

Stone was raised as a Mormon but converted to Judaism for Mayim.

The actress previously revealed that on her very first date with Michael she told him she could only marry him if he was Jewish.

Mayim is also a mother and a writer

This born comedian Bialik was born on December 12, 1975, a young 47, in San Diego, California, to Beverly (née Winkleman) and Barry Bialik. Her family were Jewish immigrants who lived in the Bronx, New York City. Three of her four grandparents migrated from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. She was raised as a Reform Jew but now considers herself Modern Orthodox Jewish. Bialik became a Bat Mitzvah and has called herself a "staunch Zionist". Her name, Mayim ("water" in Hebrew), originates in a family nickname of her great-grandmother, Miriam.

The Hebrew-language poet Hayim Nahman Bialik was her great-great-great-granduncle.(1873-1934). He was a Hebrew poet, who moved to Odessa, now Ukraine, in 1891, but was born in Zhitomir, Ukraine and studied at the Volozhin yeshivah, a prestigious Lithuanian yeshiva located in the town of Volozhin, Russian Empire (now Valozhyn, Belarus). It was founded around 1803 by Rabbi Ḥayyim Volozhiner, a student of the famed Vilna Gaon, and trained several generations of scholars, rabbis, and leaders. It is considered the first modern yeshiva, and served as a model for later Misnagedic educational institutions.

Bialik at the rehearsal for the 1989 Academy Awards

Mayim Bialik graduated in 1993 from North Hollywood High School in North Hollywood, California. In acknowledgment of her acting commitments, she was granted a deferred acceptance and attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in neuroscience, with minors in Hebrew and Jewish studies, in 2000.

Bialik at the 36th Annual Gracie Awards in 2011

Bialik has said she did not have the grades needed for medical school. She went on to study for a doctorate in neuroscience. She took a break from studies in 2005 to return to acting. She returned to earn her Doctor of Philosophy degree in neuroscience from UCLA in 2007 under Dr. James McCracken. Her dissertation was titled "Hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive, obsessive-compulsive, affiliative and satiety behaviors in Prader–Willi syndrome".

She's been the host on Jeopardy, but In May 2023, it was announced that Bialik would temporarily leave Jeopardy! and would not serve as host for the rest of season 39 due to her support of the Writer's Guild of America strike. Ken Jennings will host the remainder of season 39 during Bialik's absence.

She's also a writer, after all, and a divorcee with two sons.

Bialik returned to television in 2010, as opposed to continuing her scientific career, so she could spend more time with her children.

In a 2012 interview, Bialik called herself an "aspiring Modern Orthodox". During the 2014 Gaza Conflict, she donated money to the Israel Defense Forces for armored vests. She has also appeared in several YouTube cameos as Blossom and Amy Farrah Fowler, asking questions about Jewish beliefs. The videos are produced by Allison Josephs, Bialik's Judaism study partner, whom she met with the help of Partners in Torah.

In 2014, Bialik was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Boston University.

Bialik is a vegan and a founding member of the Shamayim V'Aretz Institute, a Jewish organization that advocates the ethical treatment of animals. In 2017, she announced that she and vegan chef Ali Cruddas had opened Bodhi Bowl, a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles. It closed permanently in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said on The Late Late Show with James Corden that she identified herself as a feminist.

Mayim told of speaking Yiddish in her home, having both parents who spoke it. She has even used Yiddish with her own children. She speaks 2 dialects of Yiddish, having parents from each usage.

She could have a photographic memory, for her life has consisted of memorizing lines in a script, and work studied for a PhD that was technical, and how can a mortal do all that? Her battery must have have been running at 110% of the time. It has been hard on her, for she broke down but has since repaired herself and is back with more; a podcast on mental health. "Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown is a quirky, informative, and interactive podcast breaking down the myths and misunderstandings about mental health and emotional well-being."

Living more on the East Coast, she told in her JBS interview of the anti-Semitism she has experienced of late. It does sound so much like what went on in Germany in the 30s towards Jews. She has experienced fear. I think the feeling is even stronger than what Jews experienced in Germany, for now we know the history of mankind and what they can do, and back in the 30s, people were ignorant of that fact. They figured nothing of the sort of the Holocaust that was coming.